UNION CORRESPONDENCE, ORDERS, AND RETURNS RELATING TO
OPERATIONS IN NORTHERN AND SOUTHEASTERN VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA (JANUARY 1-31),
WEST VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, AND PENNSYLVANIA, FROM JANUARY 1, 1865, TO MARCH 15,
1865.--#7

<ar96_171>

JANUARY
18,1865.

Maj. Gen. GEORGE G. MEADE,Commanding Army of the Potomac:

Our scouts have just returned from the Chickahominy, where they met an agent
who left Richmond yesterday afternoon. Scouts having been interfered with, went
yesterday afternoon under the cover of a scouting party, which was entirely
successful. We believe that the enemy have a line of communication with the
James River by substantially the same route as our own, of which we hope to give
more complete information by the end of the week, in order that it may be broken
up. Our scouts do not desire to interfere with it, as thereby their own business
would be apparent. Our friends in Richmond say that no movement of troops has
taken place since last reports of which any evidence could be obtained in
Richmond, and they believe that there has been none whatever. The fall of Fort
Fisher was known in the city yesterday at 10 o'clock in the morning, and
immediately thereafter, and down to the time when our agent left, the rumor was
current that Mr. Seddon, the Secretary of War, had resigned. Evacuation is still
the common subject of conversation, and is looked forward to, we are told, by
all classes of people. One of our correspondents says they have removed one
spike factory from Anderson's. These are what are commonly called the Tredegar
works, and it is presumed that the same circumstances are alluded to that are
reported as having been brought in by a deserter from the Twenty-ninth Virginia,
of Corse's brigade, a day or two ago. Our correspondent says, with reference to
the state of feeling in regard to evacuation and the failing fortunes of the
Government:

There is a steamer prepared on the coast of North Carolina, in some creek, to
take off the heads of Government. It is to sail for Nassau, and to go this
month, we hear. We shall find out more in a few days.

Our friends tell us that they know well that the principal men in the
Government and at Richmond are employing agents to go North, via the Northern
Neck, for the purpose of changing everything they have into gold. One Carey,
about whom information has been furnished more than once before, has just
returned and brought $25,000 in gold for the Government. Government is now
borrowing flour, with the promise of returning it at some future time in kind,
and whoever has two barrels is obliged to loan one of them to the commissary
department. One of our friends, the superintendent of one of the railroads, says
that but little progress has been made in the reparation of the Piedmont
Railroad; that fifteen days will yet be required to put it in running order; but
he and others think that the Government will be able to rub through the present
crisis in the want of food until the road is running. Gold was sold yesterday at
$107 for $1, and the price of flour was $1,200 a barrel, but there was none to
be had. One of our agents says that the torpedo station connected with the
torpedoes which are deposited in the James River is in Proctor's Creek, south of
Drewry's Bluff; that the wires of all the torpedoes which are laid in the river
run in there and unite at the station, which is on the bank of the creek. Our
friends think that the station could easily be captured. Our attention is again
called to a Colonel Fry, a Union officer, in irons in a cell in Castle Thunder,
who is greatly emaciated and is living upon very coarse, scanty fare in a damp
cell. It is said that there is a desire to kill him without a public execution,
and a verbal message is forwarded through our agent that by the sum of $5,000 in
Confederate money his liberation can be effected.